Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts eBook

I set down the candle and made off, closing the door
behind me. The horror of it held me by the hair,
but I flung it off and pelted down the lane and through
the mews. Once in the street I breathed again,
pulled myself together, and set off at a rapid walk,
southwards, but not clearly knowing whither.

As a matter of fact, I took the line by which I had
come: with the single difference that I made
straight into Berkeley Square through Bruton Street.
I had, I say, no clear purpose in following this line
rather than another. I had none for taking Lennox
Gardens on the way to my squalid lodgings in Chelsea.
I had a purpose, no doubt; but will swear it only
grew definite as I came in sight of the lamp still
burning beneath Gervase’s portico.

There was a figure, too, under the lamp—­the
butler—­bending there and rolling up the
strip of red carpet. As he pulled its edges from
the frozen snow I came on him suddenly.

“Oh, it’s you, Sir!” He stood erect,
and with the air of a man infinitely relieved.

“Gervase!”

The door opened wide and there stood Elaine in her
ball-gown, a-glitter with diamonds.

“Gervase, dear, where have you been? We
have been terribly anxious—­”

She said it, looking straight down on me—­on
me—­who stood in my tattered clothes in
the full glare of the lamp. And then I heard
the butler catch his breath, and suddenly her voice
trailed off in wonder and pitiful disappointment.

But I passed up the steps and stood before her:
and said, as she drew back—­

“There has been an accident. Gervase has
shot himself.” I turned to the butler.
“You had better run to the police station.
Stay: take this revolver. It won’t
count anything as evidence: but I ask you to examine
it and make sure all the chambers are loaded.”

A thud in the hall interrupted me. I ran in
and knelt beside Elaine, and as I stooped to lift
her—­as my hand touched her hair—­this
was the jealous question on my lips—­

“What has she to do with it. It
is I who cannot do without him—­who
must miss him always!”

A PAIR OF HANDS

AN OLD MAID’S GHOST-STORY

“Yes,” said Miss Le Petyt, gazing into
the deep fireplace and letting her hands and her knitting
lie for the moment idle in her lap. “Oh,
yes, I have seen a ghost. In fact I have lived
in a house with one for quite a long time.”

“How you could—­” began
one of my host’s daughters; and “You,
Aunt Emily?” cried the other at the same moment.

Miss Le Petyt, gentle soul, withdrew her eyes from
the fireplace and protested with a gay little smile.
“Well, my dears, I am not quite the coward
you take me for. And, as it happens, mine was
the most harmless ghost in the world. In fact”—­and
here she looked at the fire again—­ “I
was quite sorry to lose her.”